Made a series of mistakes yesterday.
Left the house at 12 (summer time), forgot to activate strava until a mile down the road, first rode in the sun (at least I didn't forget the SPF30), then got caught in short downpour (used my rain jacket for the first time!)...
so far so good, right?
Well, no. It was extremely humid, and while for the most part the sun stayed behind the clouds, when it came out, conditions on the road where very tough. Also, I overestimated my performance massively. The planned route had 3-4k ft of climb on 50 miles, and after the first 1.6k my legs were cooked, and my physical state was...fragile.
It got to the point where before the third climb I took a brief rest out of saddle, as I was also running into flatulence, which instead of escaping was forming a pocket of pain in my intestines. I rode another half-mile, before I realized that the climb was going to be ambitious, and that the sun was going to roast me, if I stayed on the road at this slow speed - spent 15 minutes or so in the shade of a tree, waiting for some cloud cover, and my body to come back to me. I also was starting to run low on drinks - I parted with only two bottles.
After that, I made it over the top of that climb, completely broken, and just started praying for some place with cool drinks and some easily digestable food - of course I had no feedpacks on me, only 50 miles right? Well, by this time I was already 3 hours on the road, and still about 20 miles from home.
After the descent into Calw I managed to find a café and order me some water, an iced chocolate and a refill for my water bottle.
I think I rested for more than 30 minutes, before attacking the final climb, which then went reasonably well, compared to the previous ones at least. I was intensely relieved to make it home without starting to cramp up, which might have led to the unforgivable call for a motorized evac
I'll still be nursing a sunburn for a while.
I'll claim 53 miles, but it felt like 80+ :-S
69,376
track:
http://app.strava.com/activities/319623851